We obviously have a big problem in 2016 on turnout. No more obvious than the Wisconsin Primary. The Republicans outpolled us by 97,000 votes in the presidential primaries. That is why we lost the State Supreme Court race. It wasn’t because Democrats didn’t vote down ballot. As this chart shows 92% of both Republicans and Democrats failed to vote in the State Supreme Court race. I haven’t seen an estimate of turnout by county yet. But we can assume that the WOW counties (Washington, Ozaukee, and Waukesha) outperformed again. And Milwaukee County probably let us down again. What makes no sense is the down ballot performance in Milwaukee County for the Supreme Court race. Only 77% of the Democrat voters for president voted for Kloppenburg. While 111% of Republican voters voted for Bradley. For comparison 97% of Dane County and 99% of Waukesha Democrat voters for president also voted for Kloppenburg. Likewise 87% of Dane County and 90% of Waukesha Republican voters for president cast a ballot for Bradley.
We need more Democrat voters to move to the cities and villages outside the City of Milwaukee into the inner suburbs and long term to the outer WOW counties if we are ever going to take back this state. It’s not that bad in suburbia. But it just might get Democrats used to voting in the same turnout ratio that the Republican voters do in the WOW counties now.